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A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage [1] that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks may be via the tracks of a single railroad, or via several railroads owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route.
America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. [1]
The original "golden spike", on display at the Cantor Arts Museum at Stanford University. The Golden Spike (also known as The Last Spike [1]) is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha on ...
Reproduction of Jackson's map issued by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The route started at St. Joseph, Missouri , on the Missouri River , and then followed what is modern-day U.S. Highway 36 (the Pony Express Highway) to Marysville, Kansas, where it turned northwest following Little Blue River to Fort Kearny in Nebraska.
Starting in 1868, the railroad crews set, and subsequently broke, each other's world records for the longest length of track laid in a single day. This culminated in the April 28, 1869, record set by Chinese and Irish crews of the Central Pacific who laid 10 miles 56 feet (16.111 km) of track in one day.
Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) [2] was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested in Theodore Judah's idea to build the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. [3]
Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, KCMG (February 3, 1843 – September 11, 1915) was an American businessman, industrialist and railroad magnate who spent most of his career in Canada. He is famous for overseeing the construction of the first Canadian transcontinental railway , a project that was completed in 1885, in under half the projected time.
Charles Crocker (September 16, 1822 – August 14, 1888) was an American railroad executive who was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and took control with partners of the Southern Pacific Railroad. [1] [2]